Police treatment centre cash boost

A group that helps injured police officers get back on the beat has donated £75,000 to treatment centres in Harrogate and Scotland to help fund and set up a new psychological wellbeing programme.

The PC David Rathband’s Blue Lamp Foundation has given the cash to the purposely designed Police Treatment Centres which care for over 4,000 officers every year.

Treatment is given to officer’s suffering from injury or illness, with the aim of returning them back to better health and fitness as swiftly as possible, serving the public and keeping our communities safe.

Although many patients visiting the Treatment Centre come for physiotherapy, there are a number of patients who need support with stress, anxiety and other such conditions and the number of officers needing this care has in recent years increased.

Certain roles within the force are deemed to be of a higher psychological risk and officers working in more Specialist Crime areas are more psychologically demanding and challenging.

A new treatment programme has been designed at the PTC to better address these growing areas of concern and the new Psychological Wellbeing Programme is now being rolled out across both Centres.

Head of Clinical Services, Mark Oxley, said: “Police are under higher stress, because of lower staff numbers and confirmed exposure to stressful situations, and sometimes both personal and professional responsibilities take their toll.

“Attending the treatment centre for such officers provides the necessary support needed in an informal setting, reducing pressures of life and workload to enable them to take the time to learn strategies to improve their psychological wellbeing.”

PC David Rathband’s The Blue Lamp Foundation have very generously pledged to donate £75,000 towards setting up this new programme which will support the introduction of an established treatment programme to support mental health and wellbeing.

The programme will take the form of group sessions in stress management, workshops focusing on relaxation, sleep, mindfulness and group exercise sessions.

The Blue Lamp Foundation was set up in October 2010 after PC Rathband was injured after being shot on duty.